Introduction
The summary description entails the video, pretend washing, where the main protagonists are two girls donning yellow and lime dresses. The girls are three and appear to have normal physical development based on size and stature (Pretend Washing, 2013). The girls are happy and attentive as they engage in hand washing. They have a low concentration span but have developed excellent motor skills as they can climb up and down chairs. The child’s appearance and speech development are commensurate with their age as they have a vocabulary of several words (Marks, 2020). The girls share their appliances and act out social encounters through play activities. The setting is a kitchen, where the girls can pick out essential hand wash bottles.
Cognitive Development
In the video, Tyler uses a chainsaw; three-year-old Tyler reenacts his father’s actions using a chainsaw to cut down trees. The actions highlighting Tyler’s preoperational through stage include pretend play and symbolic representation (Mcleod, 2018). Tyler convinces the observer that pretending play draws on sophisticated processes of symbolization by using a plastic tent stake and a bicycle pump and creating buzzing sounds with his lips. Tyler lowers the bicycle pump to demonstrate how the incision into the wood gets deeper as he keeps sawing (Tyler uses the chainsaw, 2013). The chainsaw’s cord is pulled four times, starting to buzz on the third pull to indicate the motor has turned on.
Tyler effectively conveys in real life his comprehension that a motor does not usually turn on with the first pull. He shows that the cable needs to be pulled firmly to turn the engine on by pushing his arm back from his shoulder (Tyler uses the chainsaw, 2013). Playful symbolism enhances subsequent stages of symbolic thinking, such as language development (Cook & Cook, 2014). Tyler reduces the buzzing volume as he reaches for the orange stake to signal that the motor has slowed. The symbolic representation highlights scanning cognitive thinking when an observer asks Tyler if the plastic tree is real (Cook & Cook, 2014). Tyler has animated the chain saw, thus depicting it as real and able to cut through other objects through the varying buzzing sound effect. The difference between a high- and low-pitched bussing sound highlights the chainsaw at work and rest. In addition, Tyler changes the bicycle pump to a tree. Tyler invents actions and sounds to represent other conditions necessary to work a chainsaw showing how symbols work in complex ways.
Social and Emotional Development
The social and emotional development regarding children’s interactions is established in the sick baby and pretend washing video. In the first video, Emma, Brenna, and Julia, three four-year-old girls, are busy caring for a baby with an imaginative infection (Sick Baby, 2013). The play encourages the children to discover different social roles, thus increasing their understanding of social contexts. In addition, the play enables the children to explore relationships of authority in their lives and experience a sense of control by resolving problems, for example, when doctors cure sick patients.
In the pretend washing video, the children acted out a scene in pretend play as they showed their understanding of the physical and social world. One girl wears a lime color dress (lime), the other a yellow dress (yellow) as they pretend to wash their hands (Pretend washing, 2013). The girl’s interaction with the environment shows their sophisticated processes of symbolization as they understand that washing requires a back-and-forth scrubbing action. The most prominent social behaviors in preschool children entail their ability to collaborate and maintain play as peers (Cherry, 2021). There is an inherent strategy for collaborating to achieve the desired level. The role reversal where one lead and the other follow indicates social mobility in action does not threaten the game’s progress.
Social interaction helps children in preschool years explore and comprehend their environment and use and develop their imagination and creativity. In the video, the girls use play to expand their knowledge of social relationships through alternating roles. The children are learning to make connections, problem solve and work collaboratively through the play-pretend action. The children explore their conceptions about friendship, illness, treatment, doctors, policemen, and telephone conversations as they attempt to care for a baby. The collaborative action entails the yellow advice for lime to scrub hard (Pretend washing, 2013). Lime shows initiative by getting a soap bottle that Yellow has not used, thus balancing the leader-follower roles.
Physical Development
In the video Grandma’s Elevator, two boys, Andrew and Edward, arrange blocks to construct an imaginary elevator. The boys demonstrate elements of physical development standards to preschool children. The physical development features are divided into gross and fine motor skills. Gross motor development skills entail basic locomotor skills such as running, jumping, hopping, and galloping. The boys demonstrate balancing skills as they prop the blocks to resemble a house with an elevator (Grandma’s Elevator, 2013). In addition, they demonstrate motor skills by climbing up and down and pedaling ad steering a wheeled vehicle.
The boys highlight throwing, kicking, and catching skills as they catch the blocks when they fall but do not catch the smaller objects. Fine motor skills are demonstrated by the children’s coordination of small muscles in their hands by carefully placing the blocks on one another. Eye coordination is inherent, as displayed by the careful balancing of the blocks (Grandma’s Elevator, 2013). In addition, the use of writing and drawing tools indicates the presence of fine motor skills. Physical development milestones for children aged three include walking forward and backward easily, running confidently, and catching an object (Marks, 2020). The setting of a construction site changes the children’s perspective as they learn that a single block can have multiple meanings, depending on its location within a structure.
This results in Andrew and Edward having different orientations to block play. Edward wants to arrange the blocks as props to support his story about Grandma’s elevator, including the column block labeled Grandma (Grandma’s Elevator, 2013). On the other hand, Andrew is more interested in making spatial motifs, such as a triangle on top of every column. The change in setups is associated with physical development milestones where one child is ahead of the other, thus leading to different construction outcomes. The ambiguity of the blocks presents an issue as Andrew occasionally changes them; thus, Edward must rename the block structures after each incident.
Conclusion
The most critical concept I learned is that play is one of the most important ways young children gain essential knowledge and skills. From year three to year five, preschoolers’ language, social-emotional, and cognitive abilities rapidly develop (Cook & Cook, 2014). Play, reading, singing, and engaging with peers are crucial at this time for stimulating development. Play helps young children use and develop their imagination and creativity as they explore and make sense of the world around them in preschool (UNICEF, 2018). The most helpful theories entail Piaget’s cognitive development theory and Erickson’s psychosocial development theory. Development and learning are complex and holistic, but playful experiences help children acquire motor, cognitive, social, and emotional skills (UNICEF, 2018). It is necessary to allow children some control over their experience. The videos sampled entailed children taking an active role and owning their experiences. Children’s initiative and self-choice to participate in play enhance their ability to achieve developmental milestones.
References
Cherry, K. (2021). Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. Very Well Mind.
Cook, J. L., & Cook, G. (2014). The world of children. Pearson.
Grandma’s elevator. (2013). Videatives Streaming Service. Web.
Marks, H. (2020). 3- to 4-year-old developmental milestones: Cognitive, language, and motor skills. WebMD.
Mcleod, S. (2018). The preoperational stage of cognitive development. Simplypsychology.org.
Pretend washing. (2013). Videatives Streaming Service. Web.
Sick baby. (2013). Videatives Streaming Service. Web.
Tyler uses the chainsaw. (2013). Videatives Streaming Service. Web.
UNICEF. (2018). Learning through play: Strengthening learning through play in early childhood education programs.